United Healthcare To Cover Bilateral Cochlear Implants

[Guest guest]

The Hearing Loss Association of America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 4, 2009 CONTACT:

Macklin

Director of Events and Marketing

nmacklin@...<mailto:nmacklin@...>

HLAA Applauds United Healthcare's New Coverage of Bilateral

Cochlear Implantation

HLAA is delighted to announce that at the urging of HLAA,

United Healthcare, an innovative leader in the health and well-being industry,

has reviewed appropriate scientific evidence and changed their clinical policies

to allow coverage of bilateral cochlear implants for children and adults.

This is good news for HLAA constituents as it provides medical

care that can have a profound, positive impact on the quality of their lives.

Bilateral implantation is increasingly sought by HLAA members because of the

clear benefits of binaural hearing. Members have told us that the bilateral

implant sounds more natural and provides them with greater speech understanding

than when functioning with only one implanted ear.

In a letter to Hemsley, President and CEO of United

Health Group, HLAA brought the lack of coverage for children and adults to

United Healthcare's attention and requested that they take action to bring

United Healthcare in line with other large insurers to cover bilateral

implantation. At their July 2009 meeting, United Healthcare reviewed clinical

evidence supporting the use of cochlear implants. Based on their review of

evidence, they changed policy to cover bilateral implantation for children, and

for bilateral implantation of adults with post-lingual hearing loss.

Implementation of the expanded coverage will be in August 2009.

We applaud United Healthcare for making changes to policy that

has the potential to positively impact the lives of many children and adults who

need bilateral cochlear implantation.

About the Hearing Loss Association of America

The Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), founded in

1979, opens the world of communication to people with hearing loss through

information, education, advocacy and support. HLAA publishes the bimonthly

Hearing Loss Magazine<http://hlaa.convio.net/site/R?i=VT7Ac4vJSjsHe9iA728i4Q..>,

holds annual

conventions<http://hlaa.convio.net/site/R?i=PYZ3MzocsFoPU2UQqoe5mw..>,

Walk4Hearing<http://hlaa.convio.net/site/R?i=KoXw7BWtZwiEVKxbdsy9vw..>, and

more. Information can be found at

http://www.hearingloss.org/<http://hlaa.convio.net/site/R?i=whhctEElyTLNr48Jc2HR\

bw..>. The national headquarters is located at 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 1200,

Bethesda, MD 20184. HLAA has chapters and state organizations across the

country.

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